1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for selling products to customers. More specifically, the present invention concerns a system to determine, transmit and provide a price adjustment for a product based on expressed interest in other products.
2. Description of the Related Art
Competition for customers in retail markets is fierce. As a result, retailers are constantly evaluating and executing various methods designed to attract customers. According to one method, a retailer operating a retail store discounts prices on some products in order to encourage customers to visit the retail store and to purchase other products for non-discounted prices.
An ability of a retailer to attract customers with a discounted price is typically related to a size of a discount reflected in the discounted price. However, selling a product for a price reflecting a large discount often results in a net loss for the retailer, since the discounted price is often less than a cost of the product to the retailer. Therefore, large discounts on prices of products may not prove beneficial to retailers unless customers who purchase the products also purchase other products for non-discounted prices. Since retailers are not assured that other products will be purchased along with the discounted products, retailers are hesitant to provide large discounts. Consequently, traditional discounting is limited in its ability to attract customers.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,612,868 and 5,173,851 to Off et al. describe systems in which a coupon for a first product is provided to a customer upon purchase of a second product. The first product is selected based on a stored relationship indicating that a customer purchasing the second product may also desire the first product. Several factors reduce the attractiveness of these systems to customers. For example, a customer who has selected products to purchase and has approached a checkout area with the selected products will often be reluctant to add a product to the selected products. Also, potential customers possess highly varied tastes and needs. Therefore, it is unlikely that many customers will desire a first product which is selected based simply on a stored relationship with a second product.
Each of the related U.S. Patent Applications listed above describes systems designed to address the foregoing problems. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/085,424 describes a system in which, in one embodiment, “packages” of several products are created based on factors such as whether the products are complementary, inventory levels, relative product margins, revenue management principles, or the like. Using the same or additional factors, the system determines a package price for which to offer the several products comprising the package. Typically, the package price is less than the sum of the retail prices of each of the several products.
According to one embodiment of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/360,422, an indication of interest in a primary product is received from a customer, and a secondary product is identified based on the primary product and factors such as purchasing history of the customer, previous interest indicated by the customer, stored associations of complementary products, retail profit margins of the primary product and the secondary product, or the like. Finally, the primary product and the secondary product are offered to the customer for a package price which is less than a sum of the retail prices of the primary product and the secondary product.
Since the systems of the foregoing U.S. Patent Applications allow a retailer to offset a loss in profit margin from a sale of one product with a gain in profit margin from a sale of another product, a retailer is more willing to deeply discount a retail price of one of the offered products. As a result, an ability of the retailer to attract customers is greater than that offered by conventional discounting techniques.
However, the above-described systems fail to attract certain customers to a retail store regardless of the size of an offered discount because these customers are simply not interested in the second product. Since these customers will not experience any discount, these customers are not encouraged to visit the retail store. Accordingly, what is needed is a system for discounting prices which does not erode profit margins to the extent of conventional discounting systems and which is more attractive to customers than other contemplated systems.